


Somewhere, Somehow

by Moth2Flame



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: A little bit of angst, A little bit of pining, AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Andrew and Neil are in love in every universe, Happy Ending, M/M, this is honestly pretty soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29028552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moth2Flame/pseuds/Moth2Flame
Summary: Summer crept up on them. The days lighter, longer. Scarfs and puffer jackets became jerseys and knits, became shorts and skins. Ever changing, always changing. Blooming in the background despite the darkness of winter and the heaviness of events that had held them down with no ending in sight.Windows down, Andrew drives with a warm breeze battling against the air conditioning. Hot rays of the sun prickle against the paleness of his bare skin, his elbow resting out the window and exposed to the light.There's a lightness in his chest. It feels like something, maybe. Something he can almost catch.(or Andrew drives aimlessly and ends up in the same place he always does and finds he really doesn't mind)
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	Somewhere, Somehow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avengerpercy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avengerpercy/gifts).



> My gift for avengerpercy for the mixtape exchange. Thank you for reminding me this song exists, hopefully you like what I’ve done with it.
> 
> Song: Put Your Records On by Corinne Bailey Rae
> 
> Thanks so much to justadreamfox and likearecord for organising this, it was lots of fun.
> 
> TWs: Vague references to past abuse, drug overdose, and canon death.

Summer crept up on them. The days lighter, longer. Scarfs and puffer jackets became jerseys and knits, became shorts and skins. Ever changing, always changing. Blooming in the background despite the darkness of winter and the heaviness of events that had held them down with no ending in sight.

Windows down, Andrew drives with a warm breeze battling against the air conditioning. Hot rays of the sun prickle against the paleness of his bare skin, his elbow resting out the window and exposed to the light.

There's a lightness in his chest. It feels like something, maybe. Something he can almost catch.

Everything is changing. Aaron, it seems, is even pushing for it.

_“I don't need you to babysit me, Andrew. Not anymore.”_

Change. It's something Andrew is constantly forced to adjust to.

From having nothing to having a brother he'd clung to with desperate fingers. Nights spent clutching at pale cheeks, hands fisted into clammy hairlines as Aaron tossed his cookies into porcelain bowls. Andrew sat sedentary at his side. Watching. Waiting. Refusing. As if his own determination was enough to keep his only purpose alive.

Watching Aaron carve his way through his demons, a name and an addiction the only things his useless mother ever gave him. To pull himself out, fill out, and complete his failing grades only a year behind.

He's leaving. He doesn’t need Andrew anymore.

_“I need you to trust me,”_

_“I need you to be my brother,”_

Andrew doesnt know how to be anything other than a force, even in the face of his own demons. Maybe he’ll learn. Maybe he’ll never learn. Maybe he doesn't even want to. 

Maybe it feels far too much like letting go of the thing he’s gripped so desperately. Stitched into the skin, pulling apart will rip his fingers open.

_“What do you want, Andrew?”_

Change. It feels like it's taking something from him.

It feels like it's giving him something too.

**

_"Andrew. Andrew, wake up,"_

_Tapping._

_Loud, annoying tapping._

_Insistent tapping._

_Tapping that needs to fuck right off._

_"Open the hell up, Andrew!!"_

_Andrew gets up. Glares at the window, at the man behind it probably waking up the whole damn neighborhood at 4 in the fucking morning._

_The window is cracked but Kevin Day wouldn't dare open it further without permission. He valued his fingers._

_"What, Day?" Andrew slams it up, tired and irritable and grinding on his teeth. "What could possibly be so important that it couldn't wait until morning?"_

_Kevin doesn't even react to Andrew's dangerous tone. Doesn't even blink._

_"She's back," his voice whispers, trembling. "Andrew, she's back."_

_"What do you mean? Who's back?"_

_"Kayleigh," he's deathly pale, fingers scrubbing desperately at Andrew's windowsill like he wants inside it. "My mother."_

**

Andrew drives aimlessly yet his aim lands right where it always does, parked next to the cracking sidewalk and painted brick. The graffiti ranges in colour and ability, but the jagged edges and sharp points of the trio of foxes playing poker was always his particular favourite. 

It's down in the corner, beside the rather deviant Sailor Moon and under the Laughing Buddha, almost hidden entirely. Almost. At least to those who aren't looking for it. Andrew is always looking for it. Almost swears it changes every time he sees it. Expressions. Body language. Fluid in a way no solid picture ever should be.

Kayleigh says that it's magic and Andrew indulges her by never saying anything.

Today, it seems the red fox was winning, sapphire eyes gleaming in the beam of sun. Cunning and deceptive, cards cradled awkwardly in its paws. 

The white one had been winning previously. Weeks ago, long weeks. Andrew wonders when it started to change, thinks he knows. No longer smug in its victory, it's dark hazel eyes now settled back to something subtle and resigned. 

The black one, always looking back, over its shoulder. The only one who's cards you can see. Queen of Hearts clutched in one paw, King of Clubs discarded from the other. Sometimes those green eyes look at you. Interrupted. Annoyed and accusing. Your very presence unwelcome. Sometimes it looks caught in Andrew’s headlights. Shocked and scared and small.

But magic doesn't exist and foxes don't play poker and paintings don't move.

_“What do you want Andrew?”_

He tore himself away.

**

_"So, let me see if I have this straight. Your mother leaves you with a father you'd never met before to go 'find herself' or some shit, and four years later comes back with another abandoned kid who's now her son?" Aaron cackles, all mean and harsh and high. "Dude, your life is fucked."_

_He says. Says like he isn't the pot and Kevin's just the kettle. Says like there aren't various substances swimming away through his system and eating away at his flesh._

_Says as if he hadn't just met Andrew six months ago._

_Kevin scowls down at the vodka in his hands. Well, vodka-water. It's been diluted down enough that a wine could beat it for potency, but Kevin refuses to add anything even remotely palatable into it. No one else was willing to touch it, probably his plan. Kevin was not particularly good at sharing, case and point._

_"He's not her son. She's just looking after him for a friend… or something."_

_"Yeah, but she's still not looking after_ you. _"_

_Aaron's grinning like he's joking but his eyes are hard like he means it and Andrew hates when he's like this. When he's self-destructive. When he takes too much._

_Andrew hates this._

_"I'm sure there's an explanation, Kevin. We don't know what he's been through," says Renee, hand resting lightly on his knee. The only nice one of their group. She doesn't fit with them, really. Doesn't belong. She goes to church and she uses her manners and she's nice to everyone and never skips class. Her mother is friends with Kevin's father so they're in orbit, but._

_But she keeps her mouth shut and her eyes open. She's the stable presence, the voice of reason. The unlikely friend who is far more than she seems. And the adults think she's an angel so she's not a bad ally to have onside._

_"Hes a fucking asshole," Kevin says harshly. Miserably. "But she kept him."_

_"Oh, don't worry. I won't be staying long," a new voice invades the space. Their space. Thin and small and appearing out of the shadows like an apparition._

_He could be, for all anyone knows about him._

_"How did you get up here?" Aaron sneers from his space on the lumpy and moth-eaten couch._

_"The ladder," the invader shrugs, all casual-like. Confident. Cocky. Abrasive. "Obviously."_

_"You're not welcome here," he shoots back, because Aaron is an asshole but he backs their group just like Andrew does. Like they all do. "Get out."_

_The intruder looks around them all steadily. Slowly. His face is an impassive mask, eyes cold and hollow. He looks like a nightmare. Like he's lived one._

_"Clearly," he says. Then his eyes flicker from Andrew to Aaron and back again in a way that has Andrew tensing immediately. "Careful. Overdoses can be deadly."_

_Aaron's already up out of his chair and Andrew's straightened up on the cracked windowsill he's smoking out of._

_"Watch it," Andrew says, because he knows. He_ knows _._

_The intruder smiles though, a challenge and a threat as he meets Andrew's gaze. He nods at Andrew's hand._

_"Can I have one of those?"_

_Andrew considers him. The challenge in his gaze, the defiance. The inexplicable thing that tells Andrew things aren't quite what they seem._

_Andrew takes a long, obnoxious drag. Their staredown doesn't break. He flicks his half-smoked cigarette and the intruder doesn't flinch as it hits his chest. As he catches it. As he puts it to his own mouth and says, smoke spilling out of his lips, "Thanks."_

_He turns and looks back over his shoulder, gaze settling on Kevin who won't even look at him. He looks sad. Empty. An autumn leaf discarded by the breeze._

_"Your mother’s looking for you, by the way," he says, voice hollow, the fire snuffed out. "She's in the shop."_

_He leaves and Kevin stares down at his bottle and all of them look at Kevin._

_He takes a swig and says, "She can wait a bit longer."_

**

Heat seeps through Andrew’s black t-shirt. It plasters the cotton to his back, gripping at his biceps. His forearms are naked to the light. A singlet would be better but a singlet is too much to bare. Andrew doesn't feel self conscious but he is. Conscious, that is. Andrew doesn't ever do anything he doesn't want to, pretending that he does is a redundant exercise that Andrew still liked to indulge himself in.

The Courtyard was a warehouse converted to a Marketplace, makeshift walls tacked up despite building regulations. Some made out of chicken-wire fences, others out of badly tie-dyed sheets with no respect for colour co-ordination or basic pattern rules.

At Crystal Creations you can get your tarot cards and your healing bracelets. Your dreamcatchers and your palm read over dandelion tea with a woman who is far too aware of her surroundings for Andrew to truly believe her cloudy, focusless eyes.

Jack sells branded clothing and genuine artifacts at bargain discount prices. He somehow always seems to misplace his authenticity papers. 

The Book Nook specializes in second hand books and has more shelves than space. It transforms into a labyrinth the moment you step inside of it. Andrew has been lost more than once, and found a dozen times over. 

Seems he gets found, now. 

Other stations, various secondhand and newly crafted items. All squeezed in between. From blown-glass to preserved pears and traditional turkish hummus even Andrew has been coaxed into trying.

The far door opens into a courtyard, an array of caravans selling a selection of sweet delicacies to shoppers. Bubble teas. Macarons and churros. The best hot chips Andrew’s ever eaten.

And then. Then there’s Foxhole Treasures. Recently purchased by the enigmatic and replanted Kayleigh Day. The girl who left with ample opportunities in front of her. The girl who lost herself inside of a cult. Who came out the other end with a son and a motherless boy and hounds at her heels that had now, finally, been beaten away.

It's a music store that doesn't quite know that it is. That still has vinyls displayed like it isn't a dying form. CDs and cassettes, all old and some donated. Collected. Coveted. Sold off like an experience. Players and walkmans in varying states of condition, various states of use and care. Displayed on the shelves like monuments, left out for people to try and buy and pretend that they can still live like this. 

There's a small stage made of pallets, crates stacked precariously for seats. It's banded together with strops that no safety inspector would ever pass. It doesn't matter here, though. Things worked different here. Maybe that's why it’s so alluring. 

Maybe it's not.

Bands play, sometimes just people. Sometimes it’s poetry or an ameture magician and sometimes the old gal’s will come out from the back room smelling like homebrew honey wine. They laugh and sing shrilly, boldly and completely off tune.

There's always a trickle of people ready to watch. To discover the wonders this little court held. Nondescript but not forgotten, people find treasure here. Sometimes they never leave. Sometimes they never come back.

Andrew always comes back.

The scratchy sounds of the player's needle is a soothing balm to Andrew's sun-scorched soul. The cool breeze flutters in through the edges, cooling the stickiness of his skin. 

His heart doesn't beat fast. Just steady. Solid. Coming back to a place where his presence settles in between the stacks and headphones just like any other vinyl.

He doesn't look up, gaze stubbornly refusing to seek out where they’re pointed. The needle held ready but refusing to drop. 

Instead, he runs his fingers over dust-greased and cracking plastics. His eyes over the knobbly and salacious looking sculptures. His mind over the new canvases on the walls, scraps of wood and bark. A car door off an unfortunate Maserati, painted with vines and creepers, claiming it back with its curling greens and blues.

Three little birds painted on the dusted window sill, ‘dont worry, be happy,’ in harsh dark cursive. Andrew's gaze lingers on it. The bitterness doesn't bite the same, this time.

“Hey,” 

Andrew doesn't have to look but he does anyway. Can't help himself. Maybe even wants to.

He's in a worn grey shirt and faded jeans, far too tempting in their simplicity. Standing far too close to Andrew to be healthy. Looking like there's nowhere else he’d rather be.

_Neil._

Foolish man, always far too daring for his own good.

Everything was changing.

**

_"Hey," Neil says. He sits beside him on the porch. The sun is out today, trying to break through the clouds, warm up the dirt._

_There's so many clouds._

_Andrew doesn't say anything. Doesn't want to. Doesn't know why Neil is even here._

_"Go away."_

_"Do you want me to?" Neil asks, looking at Andrew like nothing’s changed. Like he isn't ruined. Like everyone doesn't know exactly what it is now that Andrew’s been trying so hard to hide._

_No._

_Yes._

_Maybe._

_Andrew says nothing._

_"My mothers dead," he says_

_I know._

_"My father killed her," he says._

_I know._

_"He made me watch."_

_Andrew looks at him. Looks at him and looks at him. His tangled auburn hair, his pale pallor. His haunted eyes and his shell of a body. How close he is and how far away he seems. How far away Andrew must seem. If either of them even exist right now._

_He looks away. Pulls out another cigarette. Doesn't light it._

_"I'm not sorry," Neil says, voice dark and dangerous enough that it almost makes Andrew shiver._

_And Andrew knows it's not Neil’s own mother he's talking about. It's not his own trauma. His own loss._

_But Andrew didn't lose anything._

_Tilda Minyard is not his mother._ Was _not. She was a woman who birthed him and abandoned him and then died doing something that wasn't for herself, for once._

_It might have been for Andrew or it might have been for Aaron. Maybe some long-dormant maternal instinct rearing its ugly head seventeen years too late. Whatever it was, dying was the only thing she'd ever done for Andrew, taking out one of his demons with her._

_Andrew watches a dark cloud push into the space the sun has been trying to shine through. Aaron is still in rehab and still refusing to talk to him. It looks like it'll rain._

_Andrew isn't sorry either._

_"Can I have one of those?" Neil asks an indeterminate amount of time later. People dressed in a chorus of black have been passing them. Hushed whispers and pitying stares but none have dared to approach._

_Andrew holds out his pack to Neil, eyes not seeing anything. Neil’s fingers slide over his ones, plucking Andrew’s smoke from right between his fingertips._

_Andrew turns to look at him._

_Neil takes the unlit stick and places it right there in between his lips. His eyes are an impossible shade of blue. They're pale, almost grey. But there, right at the center by his pupil, is this burst of sapphire. Andrew knows because he's spent far too much time comparing the, far too much time looking at them. Thinking about them and how easy it would be to drown._

_Thinking that he might already be._

_Andrew looks and looks and then he looks away and thinks how winter seems like it's never going to end and how nothing is going to ever be the same again._

**

Andrew picks up a studded vest from the clothing rack in a tragic blue. Pretends it's not Neil's eyes that had immediately attracted him to the garish colour. Sometimes he just needs to get away from it, for a bit. So he can take a breath.

“There,” he says having coaxed a bemused Neil into it, giving a quick survey of his work that was maybe longer than it should be. “Now at least the tragedy looks purposeful.”

Neil snatches a cracked leather hat with a glittering skull chained to it and places it on Andrew's head and Andrew doesn't even think to stop him.

“There,” he mimics, looking far too pleased with himself. “Now we match.”

Andrew doesn't say anything. He feels like he can't, like he doesn't need to. He hands a record to Neil instead and Neil doesnt look away from him. It's long, loaded. Feels like a challenge. 

_“What do you want, Andrew?”_

Then Neil looks down. Down at the thin, aged sleeve in his hands. His mouth curls up at the edge, like he's won something. Lips press, trying to smother the rest of it. A budding smile pressed between cracked lips, a petal between pages. He skims the back, a hum escaping, and doesn't ask Andrew what song he wants. He heads over to the old record player, lifts the needle. Stops Patsy Cline from her midnight longing, mid-croon, remorselessly.

Andrew watches Neil’s fingers. Andrew has never been fascinated by another person's fingers before. The knobbly knuckles, the scars. The places they've travelled, the things they create. The strength of them, despite how long and thin they are. The gaps between them, and what might just fit into the empty spaces. 

He watches the worn pads of Neil's hands and wonders how they'd feel. How the record feels, being touched by them. Cradled carefully as Neil picks up the needle and lets off the consistent crack that comes before the music. The one that has become one of Andrew’s most favourite sounds.

It's been a year. A whole, giant, awful and excruciating fucking year. Andrew feels like he’s been cracked into three pieces. He feels like his life has been tipped upside-down and torn inside out. He feels like he's had everything he's ever cared about snatched away from him, too powerless to stop it.

He feels like he's come out of it with more than he’d thought he could ever have.

He keeps waiting to wake up. He doesn't want to.

Everything changes. 

There's no pressure anymore. No more cracked cult leaders who turn out to be fathers who turn out to be monsters. There's no more runaway and heavy-handed mothers. Mothers that probably shouldn't be mothers.

Just the fractured sons left in their wake. 

There's no more secrets, their scars laid bare and exposed for everyone's morbid curiosity. No more trials and statements and hanging out one’s bloodied bedsheets. Andrew's been down a rabbit hole of horror and somehow come out the other end more solid and strong than he'd been before. A bone clicked back into place.

It's just them. Just this. Thing. This thing that somehow feels like an end and a beginning. 

Andrew’s watching Neil and Neil looks up at him and it feels like it's already happening. Like it already has happened (and maybe it did, maybe Andrew just missed it). Like they both know exactly which direction they’re headed. Cruise control on, brakes disconnected.

Then Neil smiles at him and it's atrocious, really. How stupid he looks. 

Andrew scoffs, disgusted. Neil's smile gets unbearably fond. His clever fingers snag into the spaces between Andrew’s, curling around them like they were made to fit.

Music floats between them, all scratchy and melancholic in a way that only Don McLean ever could. A memory they’ll never live again. Aching and exposed, Andrew needs to relearn how to breathe.

Andrew stares down at their connected digits. Doesn't waste his time wondering when their bodies had crept so close. It's been happening and happening and it's too late to stop it now, really. Like magnets. Andrew thought he was stronger than this. A rock, A mountain. Unmovable stone. He was wrong, turns out he's a different kind of substance entirely.

_“What do you want Andrew?”_

**

_“What do you want, Andrew?” Neil asks, voice hushed and intimate into the receding light._

_It's just them. Alone. In the empty and broken down space filled with things Andrew and Aaron and Kevin and Renee have collected. Amongst the crappy and faded pool table, the mouldy, creaking chairs. The long dead flowers. The empty bottles of spirits drank and the memories created here._

_Once, Neil didn't belong here. Wasn't welcome. Now, he was just as much a part of it as the rest of them._

_“Nothing,” Andrew answers into the quiet of the room._

_“Nothing?” he sounds disbelieving. Like Andrew hasn't made this point perfectly clear. Like wanting something hasn't already taken everything from him._

_“Wanting is worthless pursuit,” Andrew says._

_“Not always,” Neil frowns. He's looking down, picking at Andrew’s fingers. He's twisting the ring around Andrew's thumb. Back and forth, back and forth. Andrew cant stop watching them, marked and worn and real._

_Still here. Despite everything._

_Despite how close it was._

_“Sometimes,” Neil says. “Sometimes it's what we hold onto, when we have nothing else. Sometimes it's the reason to take another step, another breath. To hold on, for a bit longer.”_

_Things are changing. Nothing seems steady or sure. This. This is, though. Them. This crappy broken down basement room with its 'fuck you kevin day' spray painted in a bold hot pink, and Andrew and Neil. This couch. This shitty grey couch that used to be green. And them. This hasn't changed._

_The side of Neil's finger grazes along the edge of Andrew's armband. Right there, in that crease, over tendons and veins. Andrew shivers without meaning to. He wonders what it is that Neil wants. What it is that he held onto, when they almost lost him. Wonders why Neil always seems to touch him now, when Andrew lets him. Andrew lets him._

_It’s like Neil has no idea what he’s doing. He doesn't. He doesn't know._

_Its stupid anyway._

_“How sentimental, Neil,” Andrew drawls. “And to think, you're so resistant to therapy.”_

_Neil scowls, pinching Andrew’s fingers in abolishment. Andrew retaliates, capturing the wayward digits between the thickness of his own and_ squeezing. _Neil squeezes back, mouth pinched and irritated. Andrew's stronger, however. At least like this._

_Neil's fingers relax all of a sudden, the pressure gone, the resistance. The fight. Andrew feels bone grinding against bone, the ache in his knuckles. The ache that must be in Neil's._

_Squeezing and squeezing and he knows that it hurts but Neil doesn't even flinch. Just stares at Andrew, waiting. Andrew can only resist the call of Neil’s gaze for so long._

_He looks. Neil is staring at him with something complicated on his face that Andrew cant even begin to try to decipher right now. Doesn't know if he wants to._

_Andrew loosens his grip. Neil doesnt try to rescue his fingers._

_“If you don't want things then how will you know if you can have them?” Neil asks, because he's never learned how to let go. How to stop. How to just accept things for the shitty way that they are and never hope for anything better._

_“You are persisting with this, why won't you drop it?” Andrew tugs his hand out of Neil's lap. Annoyed. Angry. Confused. There's no resistance._

_“You’re avoiding the question, why won't you answer it?” Neil sounds annoyed, too. Frustrated. He's too easy to wind up, too easy to_ push. _If Andrew pushes hard enough then he might just leave. Leave and never come back. It's tempting. Tempting like a fast car and a cliff edge. Like a hand to a flame._

_“I gave you an answer. It's not my problem you do not like it,” Andrew snaps back. Angry. Cold._

_Neil looks at him. He looks at him with those cool blue eyes of his. Cold and clear and fierce. Sometimes it's like those eyes of Neil's see right through him. Andrew hates it. He hates it he hates it he hates it._

_“This is not worthless,” He says._

_He says._

_He says._

_He fucking_ says. __

_Gritted teeth and flashing eyes and stubborn jaw on a scarred up and utterly captivating face. Burnt fingers flicking between them, violent little jerks of movement. Meaning clear._

_You. Me. You. Me._

_Andrew. Neil. Andrew. Neil._

_You and Me. Andrew and Neil. This thing between them that started out wary and unsure and got blown wide open in the aftermath._

__This isn't worthless. __

_Andrew’s looking at Neil. He knows. He knows that Andrew knows and that look in his eye dares Andrew to even try pretend otherwise. Andrew doesn't._

_Instead he says, “There is no 'this'.”_

_Because everything is changing and Andrew can feel the ground giving way beneath his feet. He doesn't know where to put his hands, if he can even catch himself._

_How far the fall is, if he'll survive it. If he even wants to._

_He refuses to look at Neil again. 23 minutes later, he leaves._

_Neil doesn't follow._

**

Everything changes.

This… it didn't though. This thing. This thing that is Andrew and Neil and Neil and Andrew. This thing that started like it was nothing and then all of a sudden it was everything. And it stayed. _He_ stayed. And Andrew keeps coming back.

"You'll find it. Somehow."

Andrew looks up at him. Neils fingers are warm and snug around his, their clammy skin should be an issue but it's not. 

"What?" Andrew asks, indulging Neil like he never does anyone else. Indulging himself.

Neil shrugs. Smiles. Says, "Whatever it is that you're looking for."

It's happening. And he could stop it --no, it's too late for that. Delay it- delay the inevitable that feels like it's already here. He could, but.

"I'm not looking for anything," He answers, eyes meeting Neil's. Neils mouth turns and Andrew doesn't want another fight. Doesn't want to fight this, not anymore. Doesn't have the energy. "I already have everything that I need."

Neils fingers loosen like he doesn't get it. Andrew grips on a little tighter, hoping, maybe, that he does. He will. He has to. 

Maybe he'd left Neil more wounded than he'd thought.

He just wasn't ready then. He is, now.

He's not nervous.

"Tell me," Neil says, like he can sense Andrew's hesitation. Like he knows. Of course he knows, has probably always known. A smart man, too clever for his own good. But he's got that guarded look on his face like something’s just been handed to him, waiting for someone to snatch it back again. For Andrew to snatch it back again.

Andrew wont, not this time.

"Can I kiss you?" he asks. Admits. _Wants._ Heart skipping like he's jumping off a ledge, lungs squeezing like he's holding his breath.

Neil blinks, stunned as a mullet for a second before that pressed petal of a smile blooms up at the corners and opens like a bud.

"Yeah" He breathes, all soft and warm and nudging into Andrew's space like he can't even help himself. Like he's welcome there. He's welcome there.

"Yeah?" Andrew says, not looking up from that mouth. Dangerous as it is, it's those eyes that Andrew gets trapped in. Pin him to the spot. See straight through him.

Sometimes when Andrew can't sleep he gets caught up in thinking about the way Neil looks at him. How it hasn't changed, never changed. Not from before he knew (before everyone knew) to after. Constant. Never changing. Always just like he was waiting for Andrew to catch up. 

"Go on, then," Neil says, face moving closer, mouths with scarce inches between them. It's hot. It's electrifying. It's _so close._ "Kiss me."

He does.

It's a breath of hot summer air. Its cinnamon sweetness on his tongue. It's as easy as breathing despite the air deserting his lungs. 

It's Andrew curling his fingers into the locks of Neil's hair and holding on. Holding on like he has no intention of letting go. It's Neil. Neil running careful fingers over the jagged scars on Andrew's forearms and never saying a word.

Someones playing double-dutch in his stomach, Andrew can feel the swoops of the rope whistling through his insides. It's a rush, far too good and pure to be a drug. Adrenaline and heat buzzing through his veins. A settling in his insides. A weight off his shoulders. The air let out of an over-stretched balloon.

It's getting to taste Neil and it being exactly what he'd thought it would be. Warm. Wet. Searching. Open and eager and almost overwhelming. It’s everything about Neil that has captured Andrew so completely.

It's knowing he can have this without having to lose something else.

Their chests brush, the spaces between them disappearing easily like overflowing water. Andrew keeps a hold of Neils hand. Neil doesnt let go.

**

Aaron left. 

For some college in the next town over. Wants to be a doctor. Wants to help people. Wants to be a hero the way Andrew never could.

Kevin's gone, too. 

He has his mother back and a father who never left him. He has a scholarship to play and a dream to achieve. A hole within him has now been filled and he's never looked better.

Renee's gone but intends to come back. She's traveling, finding her place. Andrew has no doubt that she'll achieve all of her dreams the moment she knows what they are.

Neil stayed.

Andrew stayed, too.

Andrew doesn't have plans for what he'll do, now. Now that he doesn't have to hold everyone together anymore. Now that he doesn't have to grip the things he holds dear with desperately aching fingers. But he has his friends and he has his family and he has Neil.

He'll find himself somewhere, somehow. 

**

**Author's Note:**

> The song by Patsy Cline is Walkin' After Midnight  
> The song by Don McLean is Vincent  
> Both are excellent
> 
> Thank you for reading 
> 
> :)


End file.
